Whispered Words

Chapter Four

Xavier found his brother standing stock-still in the bedroom, staring out the window. Nervous and trying not to show it. That was Joshua. Always trying to be the stronger one. The rock. The levelheaded twin who followed the rules and was rare to anger.

Xavier snorted. He knew better.

Josh might be harder to rile, but when the man grew angry, he seethed with a cold rage. He could burn for hours, days, weeks. Xavier got angry quick, and then he let it go. Not so with Mr. I’m-in-Charge.

“Spit it out, bro. You know you want to.”

Josh whirled around and scowled. “Again, Xavier? We talked about this. No sex with Chloe! But just a few minutes after I walked outside, I was hot and hard and aching. What the fuck? You can’t be that hard up for sex.”

“You’re kidding, right? It’s her. Our girl. The one we’ve been waiting for.”

“You mean the one you’ve been waiting for. So we share a connection with her.

So what?” Josh turned away, but Xavier saw it.

That kernel of fear Josh couldn’t quite hide, not from his twin. “Josh, she’s not Karen.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t think you do.” Poor Josh. The one time in his life he’d tried to be independent, and he’d gotten badly burned.

Xavier knew he and his twin were bound. As if they shared the same soul but had two bodies, they liked and hated the same things. Xavier accepted it. But Josh struggled. He’d tried to go his own way. Had sought out a female for himself. And she’d been a worthless bitch who cared more about what others thought and about herself than about the caring man who’d given her everything. Even the truth about himself.

“Why the need to bring up Karen? She’s gone. It’s been years.”

“Two long-ass years. And you still won’t share with me.” Josh stiffened and wouldn’t turn around. “We’re not normal.” Xavier chuckled. “No shit. What’s your next excuse?”

“There’s no you or me. It’s always us.”

“And that’s a problem?” he asked with a softness to his voice. God, he hated to see his twin suffering. But hell, Josh had to know they would always be together.

There was no rhyme or reason to it; it just was.

“Not for me or you. But we’re never going to find someone to accept it.” Josh sounded so heartbroken in his assurance that they’d always be alone. But God forbid Xavier show him any pity. The strong-willed bastard would turn on him like a wounded wolf. Sometimes it was both heaven and hell to know Josh so well.

“Yeah, well, nothing says you can’t try a few women out while looking, right?

Come on, Josh. This is our girl. We know her. At least, we know a lot more about her than you ever knew about Karen when you started dating.”

“I’m not dating Chloe.” Josh turned a hard stare in his direction. “We have too much shit going on to deal with a stupid romance. Shit, Xavier. Since when did you become such a pussy?”

“This from Mr. Sensitive?” Xavier refused to take his brother’s bait. “How is it I’m labeled the horndog and you’re the rational one? Calling me a pussy just because I happen to like Chloe? Come on, Josh. She’s sexy, she needs us, and she’s got a killer right hook. That’s an awesome combination. Besides, we have chemistry. I swear I tingle when I touch her.”

He shifted to ease his growing erection, not surprised when Josh did the same.

They both wanted her, but his boneheaded brother refused to see the truth.

“Look. You don’t want to get involved. I respect that.” Though Xavier didn’t agree with it. “But why can’t I get some lovin’?” Josh looked at him for a good while before sighing. “Fuck it. Fine. You want her? Have at her. But leave me alone.”

“No problem. Just more of Chloe for me.” He grinned at his brother’s clenched fists and rejoined Chloe in the living room. She sat by the fire, staring into the flames. He couldn’t explain how he knew, but he did. Without having to ask, he sensed she’d be okay with them both. She felt it, that connection, like she had when he’d kissed her the first time. When Josh had been on top of her, right there with him taking Chloe. “You okay?” he asked her.

She blinked up at him, her light eyes gleaming with hidden secrets in the firelight. “Great. I didn’t have to talk to my boss. Instead, your brother relayed a message for me.”

“You going to get in trouble for not talking to him earlier?”

“Nah. Jack will sputter and threaten, but he’s just a big worrier. A teddy bear of a guy. But don’t tell him I said that.”

Xavier sat beside her on the shaggy rug in front of the fire. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She turned to look at the fire once more, and he noticed the thick length of her lashes. So pretty, so feminine. Yet she’d kicked and punched him with an experienced hand.

“Tell me how a girl like you joined the police force, then the PWP.” She frowned. “What do you mean, a girl like me?”

“You’re small, beautiful, and sexy.” He couldn’t help looking down her body.

Those breasts were killing him. So full, so perky. He wanted to suck her nipples into his mouth and hear her moan his name.

She swallowed loudly, and he swore he could see her nipples beading against the sweater. “I’m not that small. I’m not,” she said again before he could voice his opinion. “I’m tough. I grew up in Miami in a bad part of the city. My father was a gangbanger who’s currently serving life in prison. And my brother died in a shootout over drug territory. I’ve lived a lot of life you’ll never understand.”

“Ouch.” He clasped her hand in his. To his pleasure, she didn’t tug it away.

“Yeah. Life was hard growing up. Especially because my mom is mixed, black and white. My dad’s Latino, and my brother looked white. I mean, Wonder Bread white. We were like a rainbow family living in a neighborhood where being different could get you killed in the blink of an eye.”

“And you heard voices.”

She sighed. “Talk about different.” She looked at him, her eyes searching. “But the voices guided me. They helped me refocus.”

“Yeah? How old were you when you first started hearing them?”

“Around six or so. But you guys… I didn’t start hearing you until I hit my teens.”

“Thank Josh. He’d see odd flashes of the future and would tell me. I remember that first time. It was weird. I just knew I had to pass on the info to you. Josh and I talk together all the time. But you’re the only other person I can communicate with like that. Without talking out loud.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And in all the time I’ve been talking to you through the years, there was little emotion involved. Like you were this girl but a disembodied person. I didn’t connect with more than your voice, and when I’d hear you ask me stuff, you were muffled, flat, kind of lifeless.”

“Josh’s visions? Did he ever see me?”

“No.” Josh answered for himself as he joined them. He sat down behind them on the couch and stared into the fire. “I only ever saw what Xavier described. A kind of faceless person. My visions would show me the people and places around you but not always with clarity. I mean, I know Jack Keiser, the PWP, and a few of your friends. But I don’t know how many of them are working here in Bend.”

“Do you see other futures? Not just about me?”

“Only those that help me and Xavier.”

Xavier nodded. “Like a heightened self-awareness. Josh usually sees futures that have to do with ours. Except since the accident—”

“Not an accident. Werlin bombed us on purpose.”

“Since the bombing, we’ve both been off our game. But we know it’s only a matter of time before Werlin tries to take us out.” She blinked. “As in, kill you?”

“Yep.” Xavier liked that her hand squeezed his. “So you aren’t in the safest place you could be right now.”

“Yeah, well, neither are you. That guy I met in the warehouse was there to kill me.”

“I know,” he and Josh said at the same time.

Chloe nodded. “He’s going to come after me again. I can feel it.” Josh frowned. “But I can’t see it. I don’t doubt you’re right. When I knocked into him, I could feel the crazy bleeding off him. But he was too fast for me. Plus, I was more concerned about you than him that night. I’m sorry to say he ran away from me.”

“Maybe. But you distracted him.” She bit her lip, and Xavier wanted to take the flesh and soothe it with his tongue. “Thanks.” Josh looked at her. “You’re welcome.” The heat in his gaze was impossible to ignore, but then he blinked and banked it.

The dumb-ass needed Chloe. Xavier could feel it. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time Josh had gotten laid. But it wasn’t simply for the sex. Josh needed the intimacy. He needed to feel a part of more than just Xavier. Sometimes it felt as if Xavier had the responsibility of tying his twin to the rest of society. And it got tiring to constantly reel him in.

Chloe could ground them. Both of them.

“What?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Why are you looking at me that way?”

Xavier cleared his throat. “I, ah, lost my train of thought. Damn, Chloe. You’re pretty.”

She blushed.

He wanted to kiss the blush away. “Sorry. So, how about a game of cards?”

“Cards?”

“Yeah. Do you know how to play cribbage?”

Josh groaned. “Come on. Not that again.”

To Chloe, Xavier said, “He’s just tired of losing. And since we have no television and he’s not into books…”

“No television?” She frowned. “There was one up here the last time I visited.”

“Yeah, back in June. When the weather turned cold, we took it out. Didn’t want it to freeze up without anyone here.”

Josh uttered a long-drawn-out sigh. “I love the outdoors, but I could really go for some sci-fi.”

“Me too.”

Better and better. Chloe liked science fiction?

As she and Josh started a debate about the merits of alien movies versus shows about monstrous alligators, Xavier started devising ways to throw the two of them together. It wouldn’t be hard. There was only so much room in the cabin, but he didn’t want to rush Chloe or scare Josh off. He had to play this one carefully.

“I’ll get the cards.” As he set up the game, the two of them continued to argue.

So far so good.

Josh didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Two days was too much, in his opinion. Knowing Chloe was theirs, the one who’d completed their odd psychic circle for the past fifteen-plus years, still shocked the hell out of him. He’d never in his life thought they’d find her. Not that he and Xavier had actively looked.

They had enough on their plate with the job.

Cannon—the name of their family and the family business—catered to those in need. Since their father had inherited a sizable trust from his parents years before Josh had been born, and their mother was hell on wheels when it came to investing, they’d never wanted for money. But the Cannons had a driving need to help the community. Raised from the get-go to serve others, Josh and his siblings used their special gifts to make the world a better place.

How the hell his father got them into so many scrapes still boggled the mind, but at this point, Josh accepted his father’s need to right wrongs. To hear his dad tell it, Mike Cannon heard his own special voice. And with it, he’d made a lot of underground contacts throughout the world that helped his team do the job.

They’d done work for the government, for foreign governments, and for the old man in town threatened with a foreclosure on his property when land barons jeopardized his livelihood. No matter how big or small, they took the jobs that felt right. And God help them, but their little brother Kyle had inherited their dad’s gift as well.

But of all the jobs they’d done, the Werlins had been particularly upsetting.

Otis Werlin and his hick kinfolk had done their best to level a town. Lawlessness had haunted the poor people of Lenton, Idaho, until Josh, Xavier, and Dana, their older sister, had put a stop to it. Fortunately, Dana had disappeared on her next mission before Werlin had set off the bomb that had rocked his and Xavier’s world.

The bastard.

Now the man had a score to settle. With several sons and cousins dead, a dozen others in federal custody and on the run from the police, Werlin had nothing left to lose as he came after Xavier and Josh. Which made Chloe’s presence a real hindrance.

He didn’t like thinking about her in harm’s way.

He stared at the ceiling as the fire crackled, the nighttime more a bother than a welcome relief from Chloe. He’d been hard for two days straight, and Xavier’s lust wasn’t helping. Then the idiot kept sleeping next to her, all innocent like, as if Josh couldn’t feel how much Xavier wanted to fuck her.

God, he wanted to fuck her. Not nice and slow, but fast and hard. To come inside her while Xavier took her ass. To own that mouth while his brother spent in her pussy.

He groaned and tried to think about anything else. The Werlins, his family, hell, Chloe’s file. The woman had more male friends than his brother had bad ideas.

All but one of the agents from the PWP with whom she worked were male. And the few times she’d talked about her boss, it had been with respect and a measure of liking that annoyed him.

Locking his hands behind his head on the couch, Josh closed his eyes and tried to fall back asleep. The perimeter alarms were quiet. The sound of the fire and the low howl of a wolf outside should have soothed him. But instead he felt restless.

Hungry. Out of sorts.

He still didn’t know how Xavier had talked Chloe into sharing a bed with him.

For Christ’s sake, the man was a predator. Nothing about Xavier looked nice. Hell, they were twins. Sharp, edgy, and aggressive. Sure, Xavier could do charming every now and then, but they weren’t model handsome or anything. Women had on occasion called them sexy, but then, they hadn’t realized that these Cannon brothers were freaks. Men who needed one woman between them to really get off.

Brothers who had to fuck a woman together to make a relationship work.

He could still hear Karen screaming at him as she’d left that last night.

Hurling insults and nasty cracks. The words incest and gay and freak echoed as if she’d just said them. The freak part he couldn’t deny. But he’d never in his life had an urge to touch his brother sexually. And though he had no problem with men liking men, he had no desire for the male gender at all.

No, he wanted a woman. But try as he might, he couldn’t envision a life with such a woman without Xavier by his side. And what woman would want that?

Threesomes weren’t accepted in society. And most women interested in a kinky three-way weren’t in it for the long haul. As if the sex wouldn’t be weird enough, the psychic crap iced the cake.

Depressed and wishing he could turn his thoughts off, he wasn’t aware of another presence until something brushed his leg.

He jackknifed, knocked the intruder to the floor, and rolled on top of him—her.

“Sorry, sorry,” Chloe whispered as she gasped beneath him.

“Chloe?” He blinked down at her. She wore flannel pajamas and looked so damn cute in them. The fire painted half her face in shadow; the other half shone with an exuberance he’d done his best to ignore. But it wasn’t working.

Just feeling her curvy little body beneath him brought his erection back with a vengeance.

She froze and blinked up at him. “Josh?”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I was thirsty.” She took a deep breath, and her breasts brushed his chest.

He had on overwhelming urge to see what her nipples would look like under the firelight.

“So unbutton that shirt and find out.” Damn Xavier.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

He barely contained a groan. “I’m not avoiding you.”

“Yes, you are. You find more ways to be outside and spend time in other rooms with books you supposedly don’t like than with me. What do you do all day, Josh?” Besides think about you? He glanced at the fire, but the feel of her hands on his cheeks snapped his gaze back to her face.

“I’m sorry if I’m taking your bed or distracting you from whatever planning you’re supposed to be doing.”

He grimaced at the word bed. “You and Xavier doing all right in there?” Was it him, or had her breath hitched? “Fine.”

“Enough room?”

“It’s plenty big enough.” Her gaze slipped to his mouth. “You okay out here?

I’m more than happy to take the couch.”

“No. I’m good.” He caught his breath when she shifted. Her hip grazed his cock, and he couldn’t help groaning.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? You’re kidding, right?”

“Josh—”

He stared into her diamond-bright eyes and lost it. “What’s wrong is that I’m hard as hell. I want you. I want to come, not in my pants or in my hand, but in your hot cunt. That’s what’s wrong.”

Hell, not the smoothest way to a woman’s heart. Hearing himself, he wanted to kick his own ass.

Chloe shocked the hell out of him when she pulled his face to hers. “Well?

What are you waiting for? Get to it.”

Chloe had been waiting for this moment for what felt like forever. That tingle she got whenever she touched one of the Cannons returned with a vengeance under Josh. Hell, sleeping—just sleeping—with Xavier was bad enough. The man never looked bad. That sexy grin, those bedroom eyes, that deep voice that stroked her entire body until she wanted to quiver like a puppy whenever he spoke…

She’d been lusting after the pair since she’d stepped foot in the cabin. And though she’d just met them, she’d known them for more than half her life. Playing board games with Xavier for the past few days showed his sense of humor, his intelligence, and his versatility. She genuinely liked him, but she was surprised to find Josh the brooding, more sullen of the twins.

So much for easygoing. As his mouth ground over hers, she added intense to the description. She arched into him when he palmed her breast. And then he slipped his hand over her buttons and deftly unfastened them. He pushed the sides apart and broke the kiss.

“Oh, fuck. So sweet.”

She couldn’t breathe as he sucked one nipple, then the other into his hot mouth. He rolled her flesh, nipping and pulling, making her so wet she couldn’t stand it. “Josh.”

“Chloe.”

Her hunger grew tenfold when he moaned her name. She clenched her hands in his hair, holding him fast, and gave herself up to the temptation of his touch.

For days she’d hungered for him…and Xavier. Feeling like the biggest slut in the world, she’d tried to ignore her weird libido. Chloe rarely had sex. She didn’t like to put herself out there, not comfortable trusting others and sick of rejection.

She wasn’t normal and never would be. Not a girly-girl or a woman comfortable with the softer side of femininity.

But Josh and Xavier didn’t seem to mind her. They didn’t seem to care she’d kicked their asses and wielded a gun. That she wasn’t white, black, or Hispanic, but a mix of all three and who knew how many more ethnicities. Nor did they treat her like a piece of ass on hand to fulfill a need.

Xavier had told her flat out he wanted her, but he never pressured her. And Josh had done his best to stay away. So why the hell had she dragged him down to kiss her?

His mouth moved from her breast to the valley between them, kissing his way back up her body to her neck.

He nipped and sucked, trailing to her ear. “I’m gonna fuck you so hard,” he whispered.

And God, she wanted him to. All thoughts and worries faded as he kissed her again. She was aware of little but the large man stealing her will, her breath, as his mouth consumed her.

His hands seemed everywhere, yet didn’t come close to her pussy.

Before she knew it, he had her on her feet and in front of the fire as he pushed her flannel shirt from her shoulders. It pooled on the ground. And then she noticed over his shoulder that they weren’t alone.

Xavier stood behind them, naked and aroused as he held himself, stroking his cock while he watched.

She should have been embarrassed, startled. But she felt a sense of rightness when he circled his brother and came to stand behind her. He pulled down her pants and underwear as Josh kissed her.

They caged her between them. She seemed so much smaller, dominated by muscular men who were aroused and ready to take her.

“So good,” she murmured as Josh’s mouth moved down her body once more.

Xavier reached around her to cup her breasts and slid his cock against the small of her back. Josh continued his downward path. On his knees, he nudged her legs wider and kissed the thin strip of hair covering her mound.

“I want to eat you. All of you,” he growled and sucked her clit hard.

She cried out, and her knees shook, but Xavier held her upright. He continued to fondle her breasts and kissed her neck, her ear, whispering how much he wanted to fuck.

“You protected, honey?” he asked while Josh thrust a finger inside her, in time with his licks against her clit.

“Oh God.”

“Chloe?” Xavier pinched her nipple, and she cried out, so close to coming.

“Wh-what?”

“We don’t have any condoms. So do we need to get creative?”

“No. Protected,” she barely managed before she found her back flat on the rug, Josh over and in her in the span of seconds.

He fucked her like he owned her, taking and pushing her to new heights. So full, so huge inside her as he slid deeper and faster.

“Oh yeah. That’s it. Take it.” He grazed her clit with each push, and before she knew it, she came hard, stars bursting behind her eyelids while he shuddered and groaned her name.

She blinked up at him to see his jaw clenched, his face contorted in pleasured pain as he came inside her. And then he withdrew, and Xavier was there. Just as thick, as firm, as hungry.

“Oh fuck. She’s so tight.” Xavier pumped, ramming deep once before he stilled and groaned. Like watching a replay of before, he looked like a veritable conqueror as he rode out his climax.

Chloe had a hard time thinking as he leaned over and kissed her. The contact felt so good, like a meeting of more than bodies, but hearts and minds as well. All that happy crap she tried not to feel when it came to men and sex. Yet here she was, feeling so damn pleased with herself and them.

Not him. Them.

She glanced at Josh and found him lying next to them, his expression shuttered, his gaze on them both.

Xavier remained inside her, and he didn’t appear to be getting any smaller.

“Again?” Josh asked him.

“Again,” Xavier answered and started moving.

“Oh my God.” Chloe had been reduced to mindless epithets as she lay under Xavier. He felt so good inside her. Inside her. “Oh my God” suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

“I’m clean, Chloe. Josh too. We’ve always used protection.” Hearing him inside her while his body possessed hers only made the intimacy that much deeper. “Xavier, how…?”

“We’re connected, Chloe. All three of us.” Xavier looked at his brother. “Right Josh?”

To her astonishment, she heard an echo of Josh’s agreement through Xavier.

“Josh?”

Xavier answered, “I’m the telepath. I bridge us all. Together, Chloe. We’re good, aren’t we, honey?”

He thrust harder, and she moaned, caught in his spell.

She sensed more thoughts passing back and forth between him and his brother, and then Xavier pulled out of her.

“On your hands and knees.” His voice was thick, his hunger urgent.

Both men had long, thick cocks covered with her. Mine, she thought, not sure why the idea pleased her so much. She should have been more freaked out about a threesome. At the very least, confused about where she fit between two men. But for some reason, the worry didn’t come. She finally felt like she truly belonged, like she fit with Josh and Xavier.

And then she didn’t have any more time to think. On the plush rug on her hands and knees, she suddenly faced Josh, his hand around his cock as he guided it to her mouth. She opened her lips and took him just as Xavier thrust inside her once more.

“Oh yeah. Fuck, Chloe. That’s so good, baby.” Josh groaned her name as she sucked him, loving the taste of herself over his cock.

Xavier thrust faster and spoke to her in her mind. “Everything he feels, I feel. Everything I feel, he feels. You’re magic, Chloe. So special. And the reason neither of us can last with you. I’m so hard. I need to come in you. My fucking cum deep inside you. Yes,” he hissed.

And then she felt his fingers over her clit. He rubbed her nub, sliding against her with a keen attention to her sensitive flesh.

The sensation of fullness increased as Josh surged between her lips. He gagged her once, then stilled, accustoming her to his size. She took more and more of him without choking, her arousal making everything pale next to coming again.

“Christ. Here I come. Oh, Chloe. Yes, honey. Oh, yeah.” Xavier clenched her ass and stopped, jetting inside her at the same time Josh released into her mouth.

“Take it, Chloe. All of it,” he groaned and spurred her into climax.

She shook as she gripped Xavier and Josh inside her, her pussy and her mouth like clamps that held fast to the men she felt a part of. Josh eased himself out of her, stopping to wipe the tip of his cock against her lips, dragging the last bit of seed from his shaft. She licked it from her lips.

Xavier pulled out and flopped next to her on the rug. He pulled her on top of him while Josh disappeared.

“Holy Christ, Chloe. You wore me out.”

“You made a mess inside me,” she said, feeling drunk. So dazed, sated, and relieved, she stared into Xavier’s deep brown eyes and grinned.

“I know I keep saying it, but you’re so damn pretty. And God, what you can do with that mouth.”

She started when she felt a cool cloth between her legs.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Josh rumbled. He cleaned her gently, then tossed the rag aside and lay next to his brother. “Give her to me for a minute.” Xavier handed her over, placing her on Josh’s chest. “Be right back.” He left them by the fire, the night pressing upon them.

“Josh, that was… I don’t know how to describe it.” Chloe didn’t have the words.

“I know.” But he didn’t sound so sure.

Before she could question him, he stroked her hair and her back. “Josh?”

“Sleep, honey. We’re here. It’s okay. Just sleep.” He turned her on her side and hugged her tight.

She closed her eyes, content for the first time in forever, snuggled between a warm body and the fire. Then she felt Xavier slide next to her, and she smiled.

Nothing could touch her sandwiched between Josh and Xavier. Her men, her lovers.

Her voices made flesh.